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Speed in smaller scale

Speeding cars weave down Perry Street avoiding collisions.
A monster-style truck takes to a 3-foot ramp and flies through the air landing on its wheels as some in the crowd give out a collective “ahh.”
Kiernan McMahan, of New Knoxville, raced his car up and down the first block of Perry Street during the RC Fun Run as part of the Summer Moon Festival on Saturday. He pulled his car to where he was standing to make some minor adjustments before running the car again.
“I got started in this because it looked fun so I just saved up some money and went to Dad’s Toy Shop and bought a car,” McMahan said about the trip he took approximately three years ago.
“I talked about it for a while and then I just went.
“The hobby can cost a lot of money, but I am constantly upgrading my car,” he said.
The real joy for him is watching his car fly through the air, “or jumping it big,” without any damage when his car falls back to terra firma.
McMahan admits to getting nervous when the car is in the air because of the amount of money poured into the vehicle, but he noted his mother, Alisha, gets even more nervous. She sat along the street watching the trucks and cars speed down the street filled with different style of jumps.
The remote-control car fever is striking a friend of his. He talked him into purchasing his own car.
During his car’s pit stop, he works on the gear box. He said stripping the gears is a problem he has because of the speed they travel.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would purchase a more expensive car because they are more durable,” said McMahan, who is a junior at New Knoxville High School and has a general interest in cars.
A Lima youth hopes to organize an remote-control car organization at the University of Northwest Ohio (UNOH).
Andrew White, of Lima, said his interest was piqued when he and his father saw somebody racing a car in a neighborhood park. He then visited a remote-control event in Van Wert and he was hooked.
“The past couple of years we have started working on an RC club at the university,” White said of efforts he and his father have made at the university known for its race car prowess. “We are trying to do it with late models and other racing cars.”
He, like McMahan, find the most fun watching the cars fly.
“I always enjoy, at an event like this, to watch the cars jump,” White said. “We see a lot of the people who race at Van Wert so you get to see some friends and just race.
“When I am not racing, I just have fun running them and racing them around like I am today,” he said.
At that moment, his RC car ran out of fuel and he had to go fetch the vehicle from the track to refuel it.
The 17-year-old was quick to note that he wasn’t done and after a fuel up that he would be racing more that afternoon.